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Dendrochronology in Context

Williamsburgs Everard House

by Edward Chappell

Mayor Thomas Everards 284-year-old house in Colonial Williamsburgs
Historic Area offers an example of how tree-ring dating complements
other kinds of investigation to tell a more comprehensible story about
one structure in particular and eighteenth-century Chesapeake buildings
in general.

Photo by Dave Doody

The nearly
three-century-old Everard House in
Colonial Williamsburgs Historic Area, told part
of its past through tree rings.

Researchers had long believed that John Brush, gunsmith and armorer
to Governor Alexander Spotswood, built the U-shaped house soon after
1717, when he bought two undeveloped lots beside Palace Green. But the
prim, well-crafted residence seemed unlikely for a tradesman to construct
at such an early date. It has much more the appearance of the residence
of someone like Everard, mayor of Williamsburg in 1766 and then owner
of the property. Everard, who lived in the house twenty-five years,
was reelected mayor in 1771, served as a Bruton Parish Church vestryman,
was deputy clerk of the colonys General Court, and was York County
clerk from 1745 until his death in 1781.

In 1983, dendrochronologist Herman J. Jack Heikkenen and
architectural historian Willie Graham crawled through the narrow attic
above the roof collars while carpenters carefully removed selected plaster
and weatherboards. They were looking for original framing that retained
waney edge, the outer surface of trees that eighteenth-century
carpenters hewed and sawed into studs and rafters. They extracted nineteen
usable samples of tulip poplar that Heikkenen microscopically examined
and mathematically recorded. He compared them with tulip poplar ring
patterns for the region, a pattern he had just developed to supplement
his earlier work with long leaf pine, and demonstrated that trees were
cut for the houses main block in 1718 and for the surviving rear
wing in 1720.

Ten years later, Mark R. Wenger led an architectural investigation
of the house facilitated by a large National Endowment for the Humanities-funded
improvement of heating and cooling systems. The work offered access
to pieces of the residence, inside walls and above ceilings, not seen
since a restoration in 1951. The more intimate look made sense of Heikkenens
dates and the buildings appearance. The investigation showed the
dwellings central passage and symmetrical front were part of the
original construction. By dating this work to 1718, Heikkenen helped
the architectural historians identify it as one of the earliest examples
of a central passage house that survives in the Chesapeake region.

Brush, first keeper of the Powder Magazine, built a house that was
quite modern for Virginia in 1718. It had a balanced front, five openings
long, with a central door leading to a stair passage at a time when
even many wealthy Virginians had no such niceties. Brushs interior
finish was simple: plaster extended from floor to ceiling in the best
rooms and framing was elsewhere exposed. The roof was covered with boards
and perhaps had no dormers to light the upper bedchambers.

Housing standards rose for wealthy Virginians in the eighteenth century,
and the refinement of Brushs house advanced dramatically after
his death in 1726. Building contractor Henry Cary apparently gained
control of the property by marrying Elizabeth Russell, and it was probably
in the 1730s that they reskinned the dwelling. Their remodeling illustrates
that what might now be considered a middling house was sufficient for
many wealthy residents throughout the colonial period. Inside, the Carys
added such classical trim as architraves around the doorways, cornices,
and chair boards. They retained large old fireplaces but improved their
appearance with new moldings and paneling.

Between 1765 and 1770, Everard slid wainscoting in below the chair
rails of the front parlor and dining room. He repainted the interior
in an array of eight colors, most strikingly in his parlor, where he
used a green glaze now reminiscent of a souped-up 57 Chevy. Moreover,
it was probably Everard who first painted the exterior of the house
white, an infrequent choice before mid-century.

The restored Thomas Everard House illustrates a chapter in the history
of how Williamsburg buildings evolved. The investigation and careful
adjustments of the restoration developed over more than a decade. Technological
aids were crucial to the study, the most essential being Heikkenens
dendrochronology. It laid a firmer foundation for the reevaluation and
established this as a small prodigy among the houses built by tradesmen
with ties to the colonial government or other lucrative employments
in the second decade of the towns development.

Edward Chappell leads
the department responsible for architectural research and preservation
at Colonial Williamsburg. His article on the restoration of Blandfield
appeared in the autumn 2000 journal.